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Reposted by Philip Amies

Dr Thomas Clements @taphonomist.bsky.social · 1h

Bacteria 🦠 🧫 play a crucial role in how animals become fossils!
Read about how decay experiments demonstrate that bacteria from the gut dominate the thanatomicrobiome (the internal microbiome of decay) and probably control fossilisation in our new paper!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The relationship between microbial community succession, decay, and anatomical character loss in non‐biomineralized animals

A fundamental assumption of hypothesis-driven decay experiments is that, during decay, the loss of anatomy follows a sequence broadly controlled by the intrinsic compositional properties of tissues. ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Reposted by Philip Amies

Mirjam Knörnschild @berlinbatlab.bsky.social · 14h

Brown rats are preying on bats at urban hibernation sites – even snatching them mid-air. Conservation efforts must include non-native rodent control at key bat roosts.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 16h

Despite William Morris giving a narrow definition of skimmington contemporaries used to term to cover wider offenses to communal mores.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 17h

A sixteenth century illustration in England was similar to a custom in Spain, man with antler horns on head on a mule, followed by woman on mule beating the man on back with a stick, she was followed by a man on foot beating her with a strap, while blowing a horn.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 17h

land. William took offence, he scrawled by Burts gravestone

Near this spot old Burt lies buried
Quickly from this earth he was hurried.
Where oh where is he now?
Say, oh say, ye who know
Up above or down below
Who's now got him, poor old Joe

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 17h

William Morris of Swindon was a fine writer, he recounts a striking description of navvies, stage coaches Mr Burt an old solicitor who innocently asked his mother when he was a child about him, then wished him sent to the treadmill in Devizes, as William and other boys had been up a tree on Burts

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 17h

A Swindon tradesman had a wife who was a regular visitor to Bath, it was assumed dressmaking and millinery took her there, but it was nights with the carter which did. The W of Wooset was not pronounced so it sounded Ooset

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 17h

He recollected several such events before Robert Peel introduced his New Police.

The people believed these rituals were sanctioned by law and stuck faithfully to the form of the proceeding.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 17h

He saw a skimmington in Gloucestershire when, happened when a woman beat her husband, the principle figure of the procession was a stuffed figure of a man placed on horseback, following was a man dressed as a woman on horseback, who beat the stuffed figure on the head with a wooden ladle.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 17h

This is repeated for two more sequences of three nights with gaps of three nights.

This was called a Wooset, the author witnessed two of them, one in 1835 at Burbage, one in 1840 at Ogbourn St. George. It happened when infidelity was suspected.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 17h

seven feet long, on the arms was placed a chemise, on the cross head a horse skull, with deer antlers fixed on sides, the lower jaw worked by string making a snapping sound in pauses in the 'rough music'.

The procession is repeated three nights following past the supposed guilty houses.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 17h

Wiltshire 1885

Blowing of sheep horns and sounding of cracked sheep bells, beating old frying pans, old kettles with stones in rattled. A fish kettle beaten with a marrow bone.
Four carried hollowed out turnips on long sticks, a face carved, lit by candle.
A person followed carrying a cross of wood

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 18h

From Somerset

skimmington doggerel

x = so and so (name of the target of the skimmington)

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 18h

Now (x) if thee disn' mend thy manners
The skin of thy ass we'll send to the tanners.
An' if the tanner he on't tan un well.
We'll hang un up on a nail in hell:
An' If the nail begln'th to crack
We'll hang un up on the Devil's back
An' If the Devil run'th away.
We'll hang un there another day.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 18h

If any of you your wives do bang.
We're sure, we're sure to ride you the stang.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 18h

He took up neither tipstaff nor stower.
But with his fist he knocked her ower.
He kicked her, he punched her, till he made her cry.
And to finish all he gave her a black eye.
Now all good people that live in this row.
We would have you take warning, for this is our law.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 18h

Penrith Observer 1898

Doggerel used by lower orders.

Here we come with a ran, dan, dang.
It's not for you, nor for me. we ride this stang.
But for Gooseberry Bob, whose wife he did bang.
He banged her, he banged her, he banged her, indeed.
He banged her, poor creature, before she stood, need.

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Reposted by Philip Amies

Steph' Thorpe @stephbirdart.bsky.social · 1d

Needletail sketchbook pages. I made the decision to draw up afterwards as I just wanted to watch the bird. I also struggled to climb the castle paths😞 #UKbirding #birds #birding #birdart #sciart #art

Sketches of a White throated Needletail, a species of large swift. They are in graphite and watercolour. The swift is large bodied with scythe shaped wings and a small stubby square tail. The body is brown with a pale throat, large white horseshoe shape under the tail area. The upper parts have a white patch on the back. The wings are black with areas of blue green iridescence. The bird even looks fast!

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Reposted by Philip Amies

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 19h

Fortifications from the Iron Age oasis of al-Tibq, north-west Arabia.
Many oases in the region were enclosed by a network of monumental walls. Not just defensive, they represent the complete takeover of the well-watered landscape by a political entity.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

Aerial views of a stone rampart and abutted bastion in a desert, skirting the edge of an area of greenery.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 22h

These things are part of holiday festivals, but all hint at consequence for refusal of drink and food. Carnival, saturnia, upturning natural order of things, licence for lower orders, an outlet in burning effigies (Guy on bonfire) burning barrels of tar, current figure of public disapproval.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 22h

Wassailing (associated with rowdy bands of young men who would enter the homes of wealthy neighbours and demand free food and drink) Plough Sunday (visiting landowners with demands for a contribution of money, food or drink),

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 23h

the point being he attempted to take Gilbert Reeve's property from him (a tin container) and did not arrest him or warn him of a breach of the peace.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 23h

Gilbert Reeves who struck the policeman was fined 40 shillings. All other charges were withdrawn including against Fred Wooton. A considerable defence fund had been raised. The magistrate defended the police officers right to intervene, although he may have been wrong in his action,

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 23h

effigies and dispersed as had happened in previous skimmingtons. He said he had told P.C. Dear this. Witnesses disputed the state of lighting, challenged the policeman's account especially as regards Fred Wooton.

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Philip Amies @amiesphilip.bsky.social · 23h

The defence lawyer suggested it would have ended with no more consequence than 'hurt feelings' of the target if the policeman had not interfered. Arthur Powney a farmer who assisted the policeman said in court that if the crowd had not been interfered with, they would have made a noise, burned the

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